At
home on the air: Dharma Dailey and Sara Kendall broadcast
from WGXC's Hudson studio.

Photo:
Alicia Solsman

ACommunity
Transmissions

After
three years of grassroots, volunteer labor, WGXC: Hands-On
Radio is set to begin broadcasting on the strongest non-
commercial signal in Columbia and Greene counties

By
Josh Potter

It’s
standing-room-only in the broadcast booth as the morning
magazine program Tell It Like It Is draws to a close.
Six commentators huddle around three microphones, sharing
testimonials and the scientific findings of a recent Harvard
University study into the mercury emissions from the Lafarge
cement plant in Ravena. The entire morning has been devoted
to the topic and a ring of concerned community members surrounds
those on-air. More hover by the door.

“If
we’re not going to do something about this,” one woman says
in closing, “then who is?!” It’s a sentiment that might
well summarize not only the grassroots effort to hold Lafarge
accountable, but also the three-year project to get WGXC:
Hands-On Radio up and running in Columbia and Greene counties.
The windows are still taped from a fresh coat of paint,
sound-buffering canvass leans against the wall, and the
atrium is full of donated sound gear in various states of
functionality and relevance, but piece-by-piece this group
of committed volunteers has built a full-power FM station—soon
to be the strongest non-commercial signal in the area—from
the ground up.

There are cheers and high-fives when the engineer cues the
show’s closing theme song, and an elderly woman dons a pair
of headphones to read the community events calendar. Presently,
the broadcast can only be heard streaming on the station’s
website, wgxc.org, but after years of fundraising and the
recent installment of a 3,300-watt antenna in Cairo, the
station is set to reach 78,000 potential listeners at 90.7
FM following their Feb. 26 launch.

A hand-painted poster on the wall of the Hudson studio—one
of three the station will eventually operate from—reads
“Commercial radio is dead and boring. . . it will not be
missed.” Volunteers from all over the two counties linger
in the repurposed apartment building, available to the group
rent-free on a work-trade basis, catching up and sharing
news. Not only is the scene a portrait of what is set to
become a busy work environment, but it’s the functioning
response to a need in these rural communities for a central
meeting place and public forum. Furthermore, with the recent
passage of HR6533, the Local Community Radio Act, WGXC may
serve as the model for a wave of small, community-run stations
across the country that now have access to the radio spectrum
for the first time in over a decade.

“When
we came, we certainly did not expect to get a full-power
license,” says Galen Joseph-Hunter, executive director of
WGXC and its parent organization free103point9. She and
her husband Tom Roe moved to Cairo in 2004 after having
spent the ’90s working in the micro-radio movement in New
York City. Roe co-founded free103point9 with activists Greg
Anderson and Violent Hopkins as an artists collective in
the South Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn in 1997,
and the group’s early years were focused on producing free-form
radio events and providing resources for media artists working
in the field of “transmission arts.”

As she explains it, transmission arts is a genre of experimental
sound work “that really thinks about the radio or transmission
spectrum in a formal and conceptually rigorous way.” This
kind of work can operate in the gallery or performance setting
but its roots are in un-licensed pirate radio. Foundational
to transmission arts, free103point9 and now WGXC is the
belief that the airwaves are public space to which everyone
has equal right as a listener and also as a media producer.

To better pursue this objective, free103point9 became a
501(c)(3) nonprofit arts organization in 2002, drawing on
Joseph-Hunter’s background in arts administration, and Roe
and Joseph-Hunter decided that a rural setting would provide
the project with unprecedented opportunities. “We had both
envisioned wanting to help facilitate a place in the country
that could serve as a place for artists residencies and
performances,” says Joseph-Hunter. “We both recognized that
artists working with media rarely have the opportunities
to go out to a retreat-like setting, outside of a dense
urban environment like New York City, to a place where there
is much less congestion on the spectrum dial.”

The solution was Wave Farm, a resource center on the couple’s
property used for artist residencies, youth and community
workshops, a “transmission sculpture garden,” and soon WGXC’s
Cairo studio (the station’s third studio will be in the
Catskill Community Center).

“To
be able to turn over a full-power station to these artists
who are making such progressive, experimental work seemed
like a really exciting possibility,” Joseph-Hunter says,
but neither she nor Roe ever expected they’d have that opportunity.
During the past couple decades, the Federal Communications
Commission has been very selective about who they grant
licenses and construction permits. Even the prospect of
starting a low-power station (100 Watts or less) was severely
limited due to a provision in the Radio Broadcast Preservation
Act of 2000 that forbade a new station from broadcasting
within three clicks of a full-power station. While the prevention
of signal interference was the official justification, low-power
radio advocates like Philadelphia’s Prometheus Radio Project
insist the legislation was an effort to protect commercial
interests. As for full-power licenses, there was an outright
freeze.

“When
the window opened in 2007,” Joseph-Hunter says, “there hadn’t
been a similar window in 15 years.” In October, the FCC
began accepting new full-power applications for one week
only. Joseph-Hunter got a call from Dharma Dailey, a Greene
County media advocate who had worked with Prometheus in
the past and knew free103point9 from its Brooklyn days,
encouraging the group to apply.

As WGXC volunteer technical director Al Davis explains,
“the FCC got 4000 applications that week from all over the
country. There was a limited number of channels, so there
were pileups.”

“We
just bit the bullet and went for it,” Joseph-Hunter says.
“I think the sensibility of this project and the way it’s
being volunteer-run—really everything about it—is antithetical
to a [conventional] full-power station,” but WGXC was granted
its license according to the fact it would provide “first
service” to its listening area—that is, for about 15,000
people, WGXC will be the only audible non-commercial signal.
Suddenly, free103point9 had a full-power station, as well
as a legal obligation to begin broadcasting within three
years.

The
whole building shakes as a freight train rolls through the
Hudson town square, mere feet from the WGXC studio walls.
None of the volunteers pay it any mind, likely accepting
the ambient noise as part of what keeps the station’s programming
gritty and local.

“I
remember sitting in this space when it was completely raw,”
says Kaya Weidman, director of community engagement. “There
was no furniture. We hadn’t finished the floors yet, and
it was me, Tom and Galen having a staff meeting by ourselves,
saying, ‘we really need to build up our staff.’”

Long before WGXC was a radio station, it was a gathering
of volunteers, and before that a simple discussion between
community members.

“In
large part,” Weidman says, “all of our work was initially
outreach, getting people involved, talking about the station,
doing things on the street, holding public meetings. At
first it was very much a listening project.”

“We
thought about what media means in this area,” says Joseph-Hunter,
“how lacking it is in terms of being caught in this gap
between New York City and Albany, and how fragmented the
community was here. It was a no-brainer that this wasn’t
just going to be an avant-garde art station. It very much
needed to be a community media project that was hopefully
going to bring people together and create avenues for communication.
That’s when we put together the Radio Council.”

The WGXC Radio Council is a 12-member body responsible for
shaping the station’s values to reflect the diversity of
the region’s various communities. Comprised of journalists,
librarians, artists, farmers, teachers, mental health workers,
and the former head of the Columbia County NAACP, this is
the core staff around which an increasingly wide web of
volunteers operates. Daily, though, it’s Joseph-Hunter,
Weidman, Davis and station manager Sara Kendall who keep
the station moving, working nearly full-time on a volunteer
basis.

“A
lot of us have a history in community media and roots in
social justice activism,” Weidman says, “and a lot of that
is really integral to what guides the direction we’re going
in.”

“One
thing I really like about this group,” says Davis, “is that
everyone is really serious about that whole hands-on part.
At a time when community radio stations all over the country
are yielding to this pressure to go more mainstream and
monotonous . . . everybody here really knows that the volunteers
are the essence of the station.”

“To
be a part of a project that’s in its infancy but has grown
incredibly before even launching onto the FM dial,” adds
Kendall, “that’s an incredible thing to be here day to day
and see who already considers this a resource.”

Building this network of members and volunteers will remain
a core mission and logistical concern even after the station
begins broadcasting, embarking on member drives and underwriting
campaigns common to public radio, but it was the first step
toward more concrete station-building projects—namely, fundraising.

After receiving their construction permit in 2008, WGXC
received a Public Telecommunications Facilities Program
grant through the National Telecommunications and Information
Administration in 2009, covering half of the station’s start-up
costs, roughly $71,000. The organization had until March
31, 2010, about five months during a recessionary winter,
to raise another 71 grand. Davis, whose task it was to reduce
costs by streamlining the station’s engineering budget,
confesses the sum was a shoestring target in light of the
one or two million dollars a commercial station requires
for start-up.

“We
needed to do everything,” Weidman says. “Get donors, have
events, write other grants. But we really needed a publicity
stunt to get it out there.” That event was a New Year’s
Eve party at Basilica Hudson, an old, unheated foundry building
on Hudson’s waterfront. “It ended up being a monster of
an event, with 60 performers over the course of 10 hours—everything
from burlesque to rock bands, hip-hop and a trapeze aerial
performance—and 700 people. It was a little over the top
but it worked. We only made $600 but we could have lost
twice that, and it quickly gave us the reputation that whatever
we’re doing, it’s fun.”

“[The
event] seems kind of emblematic of the kind of ambitions
that get nurtured in this space,” says Kendall, suggesting
that the hands-on, consensus-based organization of the group
has a tendency to amplify ideas into projects that nearly
exceed their logistics.

Stressing the fact that the social network is of more primary
importance than the station proper, Weidman explains, “It
felt important that we were doing something before even
being on the air. That kicked off a series of non-stop benefit
concerts, art auctions, pancake breakfasts . . .,” a piecemeal
fundraising campaign that enlisted the efforts of every
volunteer on even the smallest scale. In addition to chipping
away at their start-up costs, the station was building an
infrastructure for labor that has made the transition to
broadcast all the more fluid. “In starting a project that
has taken us three years to get on the air, there has got
to be other points you’re working for that have something
beyond the eventual station launch. Because we’ve had a
number of those, we’ve been able to build momentum that
would have been hard if we were just focused on getting
on the air.”

By March 31, the group had still not raised sufficient funds
to match the PTFP grant, but they received an extension,
redoubled their efforts over the summer and finally met
their goal in September. Kendall describes the kind of exhaustion
volunteers were facing. “We paused and said, ‘We’re trying
to get on air, but we’re full-time event organizing. Is
this crazy?’” The group had enough money for Davis to begin
installing the antenna on a tower they rent from American
Tower, along with three cell phone companies, on County
Road 67—a task that was completed in December—but one more
major event remained.

In September, WGXC was selected by the Prometheus Radio
Project for their 2010 Radio Station Barnraising, a fundraiser,
skill-share, and community media conference that drew participants
from all over the country. It was the first time Prometheus
had worked with a full-power station and turned out to be
one of the largest radio barnraisings in the group’s history.
The three-day event became a forum for radio producers,
media advocates, non-profit workers, Spanish-speaking migrant
laborers, and sister organizations like the Sanctuary for
Independent Media in Troy, to come together over the philosophy
and logistics of launching community-run radio. WGXC volunteers,
meanwhile, worked overtime to house and feed the 300 participants,
wrangling couch space, getting farmers to donate food, cooking
three meals a day and shuttling participants between events.
Mobilizing this group of people around a cause that was
meant to benefit everyone, the group agrees, was as important
as getting the antenna up and the broadcast ready.

“After
that,” Davis says, “we let people sleep for a while.”

In
December, at the tail end of congress’ freakishly productive
lame-duck session, President Obama signed the Local Community
Radio Act into law. Passing the legislation, which mandates
that the FCC open the FM dial to new low- and full-power
stations, was a 10-year effort by the likes of Prometheus
and other advocacy groups. It’s being celebrated as a major
step toward a more democratic media system in the United
States.

“It’s
an example of grassroots activism making substantive policy
changes in the government,” Weidman says. “Hardworking people
got this policy passed with an incredible amount of bipartisan
support.” Republican Senator John McCain was one of the
bill’s major cosponsors. “You can’t say no to community
radio.”

“But
some did,” Davis says, explaining the pressure of corporate
lobbying groups like the National Association of Broadcasters,
who advocate deregulation and consolidation, over representatives
in states such as New Jersey, which has a concentration
of commercial stations broadcasting to the New York City
area. “Really, we need a lot more than just that act, but
it’s a big start.”

When WGXC applied for its license, nearly two-thirds of
applicants lost out to corporate religious broadcasters,
Davis explains, which operate under a similar model of consolidation
as radio giant Clear Channel. The Local Community Radio
Act will help community stations, local nonprofits and religious
groups provide an alternative to the homogenized corporate
programming that masquerades as local while, as Davis says,
being run by a “master computer somewhere in California.”

With a three-year head start from the window of opportunity
opened to them in 2007, WGXC stands as a pioneering model
for the kind of stations that will be allowed to spring
up in the wake of this legislation.

When
WGXC goes live on Feb. 26, the station will run on the labor
of nearly 80 programmers, some working on a weekly basis.
Shows will run the gamut from news to music, non-English
to youth-produced. Susan Arbetter’s state news show The
Capital Pressroom will run weekday mornings, as will
Democracy Now! (Amy Goodman gave the station her
endorsement this fall when she spoke at a Catskill fundraising
event.) There will be community panels on agriculture, health
and the arts, news in Spanish, Haitian Creole and Bengali,
and music in a variety of genres. Every night between midnight
and 6 AM, as well as on Saturdays, free103point9 will use
the airwaves as a forum for international transmission artists.

Yet, WGXC is committed to keeping their programming flexible
enough to accommodate contributions by amateur members of
the community who may have a topic they need to discuss
or an interview they’ve recorded on the station’s equipment
loan. Workshop and training coordinator Dharma Dailey will
conduct a regular training schedule, and two separate youth
programs have already been producing work by high school
students, Girl Scout groups and after-school programs.

“[Radio]
is the only form of media that everyone can access for free,”
says Weidman, in defense of a form that might feel a bit
quaint to some in the digital information age. “You don’t
need to know how to read. You don’t have to have the time.
You don’t have to own anything except a radio, which you
can get pretty much anywhere for next to nothing.” She names
manual laborers and prisoners as otherwise marginalized
groups that directly benefit from radio’s ability to cross
physical boundaries and be absorbed without too much effort,
not to mention the average automobile driver. “There’s a
lot of power in the written word, but there’s something
else that happens when you hear someone say something. The
emotion that you can put into something . . . it really
hits people. We’re trying to respond to that on the other
side. The creation of radio needs to be accessible.”

Hit the seek button on your car radio in Columbia and Greene
counties and it’s only a few clicks before you’re back around
to where you started. The process can be similarly forlorn
for residents seeking to meet their neighbors. Kendall,
who grew up in New York City and now lives in Ancram, says
meeting her neighbor for the first time at the WGXC studio
was “an epiphany for how the organization provides that
public forum.”

As Joseph-Hunter explains, the notion of airwaves as “public
parkland” has been with free103point9 since its inception.
With WGXC, she says, “We’re trying to be a shepherd to let
artists and community members get access to their public
space.”